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A condition caused by the decrease in atmospheric pressure
over the Eastern Pacific Ocean, weakening the prevailing westerly winds and
resulting in warm waters and less nutrient replacement from cold, deeper waters
into the Eastern Pacific along the coast of South America.
El Nino creates strange weather patterns worldwide sometimes causing
flooding in California and droughts in South America simultaneously. The effect
gets it name from the Spanish for the Christ Child--the little one--because it
is experienced in December by the local fisherman off the western coast of South
America as a poor fishing season.
[Scientific American; v. 259, 20-25; 1988.]
[The Chronicle of Higher Learning; v. 40, p.A8; 1994.]
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